[ With rising global tensions, unsurprisingly the same old
McCarthyite playbook is again being dusted off. We reject these
smears.]
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MCCARTHYISM IS BACK, AND IT’S COMING FOR THE PEACE MOVEMENT  
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August 10, 2023
Defending Rights and Dissent
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_ With rising global tensions, unsurprisingly the same old
McCarthyite playbook is again being dusted off. We reject these
smears. _

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Defending Rights & Dissent condemns in the strongest possible terms
the increasing McCarthyite attacks on leftwing and peace groups
critical of US-policy towards China. As tensions between the US and
China escalate, we have unsurprisingly seen attacks against those who
dissent from the prevailing foreign policy orthodoxy. Over the
weekend, the _New York Times _published an inflammatory
regurgitation of innuendo, aspersions, and propaganda focusing on a
number of groups, including Code Pink and the People’s Forum. With
the “paper of record” giving these smears a veneer of legitimacy,
Senator Marco Rubio sent a letter to the Department of Justice urging
them to investigate these activist groups under the Foreign Agents
Registration Act. This would not be the first time that biased
reporting was used to predicate an FBI investigation.

Defending Rights & Dissent has worked with Code Pink for decades. Just
days before the _Times _published their hit job, we joined with Code
Pink to deliver a letter to the State Department about imprisoned
journalist Julian Assange. In 2020, we launched our report _Still
Spying on Dissent: The Enduring Problem of FBI First Amendment
Abuse _at the People’s Forum. We also co-sponsored the New York
session of the Belmarsh Tribunal, which was held at the People’s
Forum. In spite of the attempted intimidation of Sen. Rubio, Defending
Rights & Dissent fully plans to continue working with both Code Pink
and the People’s Forum. 

Code Pink has been a courageous and bold voice and the People’s
Forum has been an invaluable space for activists. These efforts to
silence them have far-reaching implications beyond just US-China
policy.

On October 10, 1960, Defending Rights & Dissent was formed as the
National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities
Committee. _The New York Times _covered the event, regurgitating the
press release issued by the House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC), which noted that HUAC had accused six of our founders of being
Communists. Over a decade later when we sued the FBI under the Freedom
of Information Act, it was revealed the FBI were the true authors of
the HUAC press-release the _New York Times _dutifully parroted. 

In those days, merely opposing HUAC or questioning the FBI’s vast
domestic surveillance leviathan was enough to tar someone with
suspicion of something sinister. During the Cold War, J. Edgar
Hoover’s FBI, HUAC, and other forces of political repression all
treated the holding of verboten views on anything from civil rights to
foreign policy as evidence the speaker was part of a subversive plot.
According to Hoover, although it was difficult to prove membership in
the Communist Party, it was easy to prove they were speaking the
“Communist Line.” The FBI compiled reports on the “Communist
Line” and did side-by side comparisons with activist groups or
political publications. Both membership in a subversive organization
or the belief that one may be influenced by subversives opened one up
to the same intensive surveillance and dirty tricks of the FBI.

After restrictions were placed on the FBI in the 1970s, the FBI used
its nebulous foreign counterintelligence powers to say it was
combatting “active measures” in the form of Soviet disinformation
and international terrorism to target dissent. The official reasoning
may have changed, but the internal logic was the same, and the FBI set
out in pursuit of opponents of Ronald Reagan’s murderous Central
American policy arguing they were “foreign agents” or supporting
terrorism as evidenced by their political views. 

We saw this same playbook repeated again after September 11, 2001 and
applied to critics of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as
the suppression of civil liberties at home. Repeatedly, supporters of
Palestinian rights have also been subject to similar McCarthyite
tactics. In many cases, the FBI justified its investigations and
inquiries based on information coming from right wing groups. That is
precisely what Sen. Rubio and others are hoping will be the result of
the _Times _piece. 

With rising global tensions, unsurprisingly the same old McCarthyite
playbook is again being dusted off. We reject these smears.

_In 2016, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee and the Defending
Dissent Foundation joined forces to become:  Defending Rights &
Dissent.  We work to make the promise of the Bill of Rights a
reality for everyone in the US.  Freedom to dissent is essential to a
functioning democracy, and every person under U.S. jurisdiction or
control is entitled to Bill of Rights protections. At all times and
especially when federal, state, or local governments propose or enact
laws or policies that threaten or deny those rights, the people
organize, exercising those same rights in the service of protecting
them. Most people understand that the country cannot be made safer by
sacrificing some rights for all or part of its population. When the
people know and exercise their rights, the liberties guaranteed by the
Bill of Rights hold firm and remain self-sustaining._

* McCarthyism
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* FBI
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* HUAC
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* Code Pink
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* new cold war
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